Two boarding school Heads in the US and Canada have fascinated me over my career – one from my reading, and the other from personal experience. Both were sons of missionaries – one in Japan and the other in Iran (Persia at that time). Service to others was ingrained in them, and such dedication to others is the hallmark of the truly great Heads – and teachers.
Frank Boyden was a graduate of Amherst College and then Headmaster of Deerfield Academy from 1902 to 1968. Yes, you read those dates correctly! Here he is in 1959 with Mrs. Boyden, who was very much the matriarch of the school:
Mr. Boyden took Deerfield from a sleepy, run down establishment with just 14 students to becoming by today one of the most sought after prep schools in the United States. One of his trademarks was positioning his desk in the main hallway so he could “ assess the mood of the boys as they passed by,” and have meaningful spontaneous chats with them. He possessed no complex, jargon-laden views on education, but believed rather in simply helping students lead productive and happy lives on a daily basis.
Deerfield never had a marketing brochure or view –book in his tenure. When asked about this he said, “ A brochure is a sales argument. I don’t need a sales argument. “ Deerfield today has superb Ivy League acceptances for its students, and is one of the most competitive prep schools for admission. It does have a view – book now, and much more!
John Schaffter was a boarding student in England from the age of 8 to 18, years he did not see his parents who were trapped in Persia during World War Two. Ultimately John graduated from Cambridge, then immigrated to Canada by steamer (he met his wonderful wife, Anne, on the passage across the Atlantic), and began teaching history at the prestigious Upper Canada College in Toronto. In 1969 he moved to Winnipeg where he essentially saved St. John’s-Ravenscourt School (SJR) with three calculated moves:
1. He took the school co-ed; the first independent boys’ school in Canada to do so.
2. He chased academic excellence, and focused on National Math contests run by the U. of Waterloo. He hired great teachers – I was one, so I’m biased. SJR won the U. of Waterloo math contests for years. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I was an English teacher!)
3. John marketed SJR’s successes widely through superb photography, personal interest stories, student/ faculty profiles in the newspapers of small towns where his boarding students resided, and more. Boarding flourished, and strong word of mouth came from this coherent marketing campaign. John mirrored this strategy throughout the 1980’s with further success at St. Michaels University School on Vancouver Island. He can be viewed as the first educational marketer in Canadian independent schools.
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In this photo at SJR from 1974, mirrored in 2014, you can see John’s creativity at work.
Fast-forward to today’s plethora of marketing devices and on-line media that parents and students are asked to absorb. While fascinating, it can be confusing and can appear that every school is a great one, yet the essential question remains of how can you find the “right school.”
J. & A. is here to help families cut through the swathe of marketing materials to discover, in partnership with our clients, the best path to the school of their dreams.
